- Hi everyone, I'm Madeleine Cheezum,
with UWorld Roger CPA review.
I am very excited to share my guest with you today.
Jujuan Williams , she's a CPA and MBA,
and she is the founder of the nonprofit organization,
The Lady CPA Network.
Now Jujuan comes to the table with a lot of experience.
She actually is the owner of her own successful
public accounting firm and with her extensive experience
and incredible passion to help African American women
reach their full potential in their careers.
I'm really excited for Jujuan to share her experience
and lend some inspiration.
So we look forward to the start of a little video series
that we hope to do over the next few weeks.
And today will be our kickoff,
an opportunity to meet Jujuan
and learn a little bit about her
and her organization and how she's been an inspiration.
So thank you, Jujuan, welcome.
- Thank you.
- First, I would love if you could just tell us
a little bit about your background
and who and what inspired you to become a CPA?
- Yes, so the crazy thing is I went to college
and majored in criminal justice.
I just knew I was gonna be a lawyer.
I'm gonna do corporate law.
I'm gonna just be this big successful lawyer
and so I majored in criminal justice.
I absolutely loved it,
but I really fell in love with like investigations
and like forensics and finances and all of that.
So after I graduated with my bachelor's degree
I took the LSAT and I remember coming out saying,
Oh my God, what was that?
(laughing)
I was devastated, I was like, oh my God.
I called my sister crying, like, I think I bombed it.
I don't know what that was all about.
So I was like, okay, I will re-study some more.
And then I took a job doing payroll while I was studying
but from there I loved it.
I loved payroll.
And then I went to a accounts payable
and then I went to accounts receivable.
And then I was like, wait,
I think I wanna be an accountant.
I kind of liked it.
Growing up, I didn't know any accountants.
I have no one in my family that anyone, you know,
mentored me or ever talked about the profession,
but I really enjoyed it.
So that's when I went back
and I got a master's degree in accounting.
And from there everything just took off,
but I like to combine the two
because I still love forensics
and I still love investigations
So I combined the two and I do a lot of forensic accounting
and investigative accounting and looking at the numbers
and finding the errors and fraud and all of that.
So that's literally how I got introduced to the profession.
(laughing)
So it fell into my lap.
- Well, that's great.
We're glad you went this direction.
(laughing)
- I'm glad I did too.
- It's great because it also led
to you starting The Lady CPA
and love to hear a little bit more about that,
how the idea initially launched.
- So the crazy thing is my original firm,
I started in 2007,
so I was in corporate accounting from like 98,
I think all the way up through 2007.
And then I was like,
you know, I really need to do this for myself.
Like I'd been senior accountant,
regional accountant, all these different
corporate accounting positions,
where we were handling 140, 160 accounts each.
And I was like, okay, if I could do this for them,
I could do this for me.
(laughing)
So I'm like, you know what, let me start reaching out.
So I put some feelers out and it took me about two years
to completely grow my firm
to where I could leave my corporate accounting job.
So in 2009, yeah, 2009 I left
and I really didn't look back.
So the crazy thing is, I was crazy successful with my firm
before I obtained my CPA.
So after going about 10 years into my firm,
I was like, you know what, I wanna go a little farther.
I think I'm gonna go ahead and get licensed.
And the main reason was I had clients
that I needed a CPA.
And the one I had to refer them to,
who I knew, was just not my,
he wasn't warm, he wasn't my personal, you know,
that feeling of warmth and welcoming
and coping with your clients,
is a thing that I offer.
So my clients would always come back and say,
well, we like him, but it's not so hard to become a CPA.
And I'm like, okay, fine.
(laughing)
That was really my answer, okay, fine, I'll do it.
(laughing)
So, I started studying and then I realized,
oh my God, this is hard.
I'm like, I need help.
Like, I need someone to say,
okay, are you studying today?
What's your schedule?
You know, someone to really hold me accountable
to stick with the schedule
because when you're working and you have kids
and you have a husband and all this stuff going on.
So I found on Tory,
who was my accountability partner.
And we were studying together because we were alike.
She had kids, she had a husband.
So I was sitting there one day and I'm like, you know what?
We all need this.
So then I started Googling
and I didn't find anything specifically for women.
They have different accounting associations.
They have, women professional organizations,
but nothing geared to African American women
in accounting and finance,
where you can really mentor in a smaller sitting,
not a thousand, hundreds of thousand member organization
where you really don't contact anyone.
That's not really one on one.
I wanted something to be small
so that we can work together and really personable.
And that's what I did.
So literally that's what I did.
Like, I'm a huge fan of shark tank.
And they always say, if you find something,
a problem and you wanna solve it, then you solve it.
So if you find a gap or an opening in something,
and you fill it, and that's exactly what I did.
So I called a panel of accountants together,
accountant friends, colleagues that I work with.
And we did a little panel discussion
and I pitched the idea,
just to get some feedback on how they felt about it.
And everyone was like,
do it, like you have to do it
because we don't have anyone.
And so many people start their journey to CPA stardom
and they don't finish.
And they don't finish because they become discouraged.
They don't have anyone that has gone through the situation
and know what they're going through.
So it's just like, I can't do this.
This is too hard, I give up, I quit.
I think I've quit like 20 times (laughs)
then I was like, I can't.
And then my accountability partner
would always come back and say,
no girl, you got this, we gonna do it together,
we gonna get through it together.
And that's really what pushed me forward.
And we both finished. (laughs)
Both are now CPAs.
We have a lot of other ladies that started
through the program.
They're still studying, a few more, have finished.
And that's literally what we're doing.
Just holding each other accountable, pushing forward.
And even for the ones that aren't CPAs.
Because I tell people,
that's not everyone's aspirational goal
and that's absolutely fine,
but you still need someone that you can lean on
when you have career questions or you need advice,
or you're just not sure where to go within the profession.
So we offer that to everyone.
So it's just not, Oh, if you're not a CPA,
you can't be a part of it.
Not at all because your career goal
and your path is your own.
And we're just here to kind of help you navigate the system.
- That is great.
I mean, in working with the future CPAs,
everyone needs support.
Everybody needs that mentorship.
So it's, it's great.
And big shark tank fan as well.
(laughing)
- I love it.
I would watch the re-runs everyday, all day.
You learn business.
- Absolutely, absolutely, that's great.
So The Lady CPA has a great mission of providing a network
and platform for African American women in accounting
and finance as a support system and collaborative body
of professionals.
It's beautiful.
I'm curious if you could give us a little insight into how
that translate into the actual work that you're doing
with the organization.
- Yes, so I remember my mom used to always,
when she would introduce me to people, she would say,
this is my daughter Jujuan ,
she's a career student because I would always be in school
for something (laughs).
Like I had literally been in school, yeah, forever.
So when I did my bachelor's and I did my masters
then I did my doctorate.
I'm not finished with my dissertation.
So I'm in like all but dissertation, which is ABD status.
And then I started studying for the CPA exam.
So I literally have been in school,
but you still need that support.
So I use our little model as like scholarship, leadership,
collaboration, support, and advocacy,
because you need all of that as women.
Like you need to continue to educate yourself.
And a lot of people don't have someone in the background
saying, okay, we'll go further.
Okay, but go further.
Like you should never get complacent
in wherever your educational knowledge is.
Like, you can always learn more.
And that's what I tell people, but people don't know that.
And if you don't surround yourself with people
that will continue to push you,
you'll stay in a place where you're complacent,
but you have so much potential to go further.
And that's where the collaborative efforts come forth.
That's where, the leadership
being able to lead someone in the direction
that they know they wanna take
or that you know you see within them
and just pushing them forth.
And that's literally what we do.
Like we have our ladies come over,
especially the students, we have a lot of student members
that follow us.
And you know, I always ask them a,
let me detail what your plan is, where do you see yourself?
Where do you wanna go?
And then we come up with a plan to get them there.
And then even during that plan,
they may have questions or they just wanna know
what's going on.
So as a collaborative body is what we call it,
we all come together.
So we do webinars, we do events,
before COVID-19, where we come together and collaborate.
What is it that you wanna do
and how can we get you there.
It's simple questions as, we have young ladies
that are in their first accounting positions
and they're like,
okay, well I'm learning this new system.
But I don't know how to work it.
Send us a message, we'll walk you through it.
Don't let your boss know that, we've got your back.
(laughing)
We will definitely make sure it's like, okay,
I'm doing this entry for my boss, how do I do it?
Here you go.
So we keep a forum going on Facebook,
anything you need, you just type in a question,
you could be in the middle of your workday
and you don't know how to do something,
send one of us a message and we'll walk you through.
And that's what the whole collaborative effort is.
And just making each other,
people say, I'm your sister.
Well, we all your sisters,
we want to make sure that you become the best you
and pull out every potential that you have within
so that we can make sure that as a whole,
we represent the brand, the organization
and the industry as a whole, the best way we can.
- That's great.
Can you actually, that sounds really interesting.
I'm curious about the specific events
and programs that you do.
Can you tell us a little bit about that?
- Yes and actually we have quite a few coming up,
starting at the end of this month.
So usually it's always something surrounding
of course the profession,
but how to navigate the profession.
So at the end of the month,
and we'll have these dates on our website,
we're actually having a mental health webinar
because accounting profession is stressful.
A 12 hour day is normal for us
especially when it's tax season.
So, you know, a lot when we get overwhelmed.
And what we found is that there aren't many women period
at partner and senior manager level in public accounting
or corporate accounting.
And then, once you get to African American women
at those levels, it's a unicorn.
Like it's really rare.
And it's because most women don't know how to balance
the pressure of this profession,
the long hours and deal with the family.
So that particular webinar's gonna be with I'm Spirit,
is who she goes by,
and it's a mental health webinar.
Just how to deal with the mental health
and the stress and the pressure of the profession.
And another one we have coming up
is with Sabina Charles, she's a CPA.
She calls herself a CPA doctor, but she's a coach.
And she does like the other certification exams,
internal audit exam, CPA exams,
a couple of different certifications that she has.
And she just comes in and coaches The Lady
on how to prepare yourself for exams,
how to decide which career profession you want.
How to even choose what certifications you wanna have.
If you wanna be a certified forensic accountant
or certified management accountant,
certified internal auditor,
like it's so many different aspects of the profession.
And so many people think is just about taxes.
Because I always get that, Oh, you're CPA,
can you do taxes?
I hate taxes (laughs).
But they kind of bottle you up and what you do as a CPA
or even as an accountant.
So we're bringing her in just to kind of give everyone
a good view of what your career opportunities are
if you are an accountant.
What certifications you should maybe obtain,
what certifications you may never even need.
Depending on what your goal or aspirations are.
So she's coming.
And then our final one,
I absolutely love is Charlene Reinhardt.
And she's a CPA as well.
And she does wealthy women dailies.
She teaches women how to invest.
Like millions invest, like stocks invest.(laughs)
And we've actually had her on before.
She introduced all of us.
And I started investing like literally right after
that webinar two years ago.
So she's gonna do that again for us next month.
And it's really just teaching women how to invest.
What stocks is, what dividends is,
do you want dividends stocks?
Do we want, you know, high yield stocks,
all of that good stuff.
So those are things that we do together
and it's not just for members.
We opened it up to everyone.
Like, you know, it's open to everyone.
We just wanna pour out the wealth of the knowledge
and the people that we have in our circle to everyone.
- That's great, that's really great.
Yes, I could definitely learn
a little bit more about investing.
Maybe I'll tune in. (laughs)
- I'll let you know when she'll be on,
because it's amazing.
- I will definitely, thank you.
- She lives and travels off of the dividends.
She earns off of her stocks.
- That's great.
(laughing)
I think this is our last question
for this portion of the series.
What methods do you use to show African American women
specifically that they can be successful
within the accounting profession?
- It's just straight mentorship.
You can only lead by example.
So like our lady ambassadors on our website,
they're listed, they are all CPAs.
They are all women who started exactly
where someone is right now.
So whether it is right out of college and you decide to go
straight forth with your CPA,
or if you're like me who waited,
worked 20 years almost before I decided
to go get my certification.
Or if you're someone who comes from a low economic
background and you just don't know what to do,
or you don't have a mentor, all of those,
like we literally lead by example
of this is what you can be.
This is what you can do.
You can absolutely obtain it.
We are all the same people.
Like I grew up, you know, my mother, yeah,
we were in the hood. (laughs)
Like I was the first one and still the only one of my mom's
four kids that went to college.
So it's not that, a lot of people say,
okay, well, why aren't African American women
or African American people in general,
moving on to become CPAs.
And I really just feel it's mentorship.
I really feel that they don't understand
that this profession is a lucrative profession.
They look at doctors and lawyers,
and say, oh, I wanna be a doctor.
Oh, I wanna be a lawyer or now technology.
Okay, I wanna be in technology.
And I think they look at accountants
and go there being in counters,
like, who wants to sit in a counter.
Like if you Google accountant
and the picture that come up,
it's like, oh, I don't wanna be an accountant.
Like I don't come up as an accountant.(laughs)
Other women professionals don't come up as accountants.
Literally when you Google you see this man
at a computer doing this, with glasses on.
(laughing)
And that's the picture of what an accountant is.
And that's so far from what the profession has evolved to.
Like, it may have been that a hundred years ago,
but it's definitely not that now.
And that's kind of what we really wanted to do.
Like I used to,
my motto is I just wanted
to change the face of accounting.
This is the face of accounting.
It's a lot of us out there and people just felt,
so that's literally what it's about.
Mentorship and letting people know
this is something you can do.
And it's a very great profession.
- Well, I mean, clearly, I mean, as we started off,
I mentioned that I think that you're a great inspiration
to anyone out there who might have had some pre-conceived
misconceptions or just need that little bit of motivation
and just really opening the door as well to the importance
of mentorship and support.
I think that's, that's really, really important.
So I'm really glad that we started this
and I hope that we get to dive into some more topics.
In the meantime,
if anyone is interested in learning more about The Lady CPA,
they can visit TheLadyCPANetwork.com.
Got it right?
(laughing)
- Thank you so much.
And we will definitely do this again soon.
- Absolutely looking forward to it, thank you.
- Thank you, Jujuan.